Do you ever think that you’re pretty solid in your recovery, only to wake up to an overwhelming feeling of frustration and dissatisfaction? That was my experience these last few weeks. Except this time, I knew that the problem was all me –cue Taylor Swift.. “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s meAt tea time, […]
14 years ago, I didn’t think that I had a problem. It was my loved ones who needed help. Not me. Boy was I wrong. If you are new to recovery, this may come as a shock, but we all need recovery. But, what exactly does that look like? Let me share some thoughts, but […]
I got a call from someone lost. I will call the person, Joe. Joe was at his bottom. He’d run out of ideas. He’d tried everything he could to help his loved one deal with their addiction. He’d exhausted every idea within HIS power and he came up short. So he reached out for help. […]
A few years ago, I became aware of a parish who’d lost a high school student to overdose. While talking to parents in the area, I learned that this was the third death in a six-month period of time in their Catholic high school due to the effects of drugs and alcohol. I decided to […]
I remember the day that I showed up for my first ever 12-step meeting. I was early. No-one was there yet. I sat nervously outside the basement door of the Episcopal Church dreading the next hour. I did not want to be there. I did not want to be a member of this club. One […]
My beloved readers, I know that most of you have been negatively affected by drugs and alcohol and so let me ask you to please indulge me in this post. For the sake of growth, I’d like for you to read it with an open mind. I grew up in a small town in a […]
My sisters came to my house a few weeks back to make strawberry jam. There are three of us. My oldest sister, Jane is 11 years older than me. My sister Joy is 8 years older than me. It wasn’t until we were adults that they felt less like second-mothers and more like sisters. I […]
When you are the first member of your family to change, it is going to be difficult. Resistance will meet you at every corner. Change feels very uncomfortable. It will be hard. But hard is not impossible. If you think about it, hard is easier than living the way that you’ve been living. It’s like […]
Bill Wilson was truly ahead of his time. One of the topics that he’d hoped to explore before he died was one that he considered to be a root problem of addiction: emotional sobriety. He described emotional sobriety as “real maturity and balance in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows and with God.” It […]
In 12-step rooms, you will often hear this slogan: “Expectations are just premeditated resentments.” This simple phrase helped me notice that I had unconscious expectations for the way that I thought that my loved ones should recover. I always thought that expectations were a noble thing to have, much like a goal. Instead, this slogan […]